Of Soldiers and Huntresses
by SchrodingerDM
Summary: A collection of stories following a Morat Karanatat (Regiment) in the wake of the Combined Army's unsuccessful attempt to invade the Human Sphere through the Wotan Blockade. The aliens now have to review their alliances and objectives and prepare for more than just fighting humans.
1. Dramatis Personae

This is a short list of the characters in this story, this list will grow as more characters gain prominence and importance.

Superior Warrior Officer Hirok: A warrior in Sogarat Super Heavy power armor, the oldest Officer in the Regiment, staunchily loyal to the Combined Army

Warrior Officer Kasaro: A warrior in Suryat Assault power armor, the youngest Officer in the regiment and a highly idealistic one who is still learning how to command his troops.

Packmistress Ren'ehk Karakot: An Oznat Huntress, specialized in close combat and flanking manouvers. She is well into her older age, and has begun to lose patience for the younger ones

Huntress Oyat Karakot: A Raizot Tactical Armored Gear pilot, and Ren'ehk's younger sister. Brash, impulsive, but highly competent, she pilots the Storm Dancer TAG.


	2. Thoughts on Sogarats

**THOUGHTS ON SOGARATS**

The underbelly of the ship was restless. As the Combined Army troops retreated from the now overrun Raxora Assault Carrier, the assembled Morat Forces growing more and more impatient with every passing second they were held packed in the cargo hold. This was no way to end a war, with the soldiers weighed down by not just defeat, but frustration, humiliation and even abandonment. Now the many Aspects of the EI gathered together to discuss and pool resources, leaving the troopers blind, allowing their angers and frustrations to grow into dissent, and from dissent to treason.

In nowhere else were these thoughts more obvious than the cargo hold of the Jevarak Morat Troop Transport, the ship overpacked with the survivors and wounded as they returned to an established rendezvous point further away from the secured blockade. No one else embodied those thoughts more than Sogarat Sothek, the young but brutal warrior beating his chest as he spoke, standing atop a stack of metal crates. The sogarat hadn't even received his badirak yet, but he had been in the forefront of the battle for the Wotan Blockade, and believed to be speaking from experience

Sothek was clad in full battle armor, so heavy the crates buckled and bent under his weight as he paced across them, punching his own battle armor to emphasize every other word "Where is the might of the Combined Army?" he roared, his fist slamming on his armored chest to produce the clangor of a wardrum, the metallic echo drawing eyes and ears to his bellowing voice. His face was unmarred, red and swollen with anger "Where *was* the might of the Combined Army? We fought! We bled!" This was true, as like many others of his kin Sothek had been in the thick of the fighting since the first day, putting his skills and his armored bulk to their best use. But, now staring defeat in the face, the young warrior was inflamed into a frenzy, and he was set in whipping his brethren into a traitorous uproar.

"No support! No backup! They fed us to the grinder, and we bled! We died!" Each word was now followed by a smashed fist on his chest plate, so hard there was an indentation forming where mailed gauntlet met hard battle armor to create that strident, violent sound. "And now the EI aspects all grow silent" His voice lost some of it's volume, but none of its venom, instead becoming more subtle, and dangerously conspiratorial."They plot and brood and scheme, while we remain in the dark. We are warriors, not plotters! Give us a fight! Any fight!" The chorus of literal-chest beating was joined this time by the disgruntled shouts of approval of his comrades, who, left to stew long enough, finally began to boil over. The vaunted chamber where the morat soldiers and their war machines were held slowly swinging towards riotous, self-righteous disorder.

All across the loading dock, the eyes were on him now. He could see the suryat officers nod in approval and tacit consent rather than pull-rank and restore order. Even the usually stout and silent Orlok, the warrior officer of their Rodok squad, stood up, still silent but showing his support while his soldiers all bellowed and beat their chests in agreement "We fight!" they bellowed. It was a desire, a need, the loss at Wotan too bitter and too fresh to stomach. Morats did not lose wars, but it had never occurred to these warriors that they could lose battles.

"This is our time." Once more Sothek slammed his fist on armor again, as if the steady tempo would reinforce his makeshift authority, empowering him as the newest commander of the increasingly raucous troops "I say we overtake this ship and assault the Combine High Command itself! Take back our power! Restore the Hegemony!"

As his vague pontifications moved into openly treasonous order-giving, a sudden tension filled the air as the gravity of his suggestions began to settle in and take hold.

The two Daturazi warriors in the room, Darak with his long polearm in hand, and Sophet who had so far been busy scrimshawing a human skull, now raised their heads, wondering if they would have to take action against the rabble-rouser. "They are weak! We should not bow to them!" Sothek's voice was like a raid siren, loud, obnoxious but impossible to be ignored, and more voices joined his in agreement.

And then, with startling suddenness, an uneasy silence, broken only by the metallic thunks of boots as a new party entered the chamber.

While some warriors commanded obedience by fear, strength or sheer volume, others commanded by example and experience. Where the former drove their men, the latter led. Warrior Officer Hirok was one of the last type, a broad shouldered, heavily armored sogarat whose badirak badge wasn't even displayed on his suit, having been torn off and destroyed in the many firefights the huge officer had taken part in recently. He oozed authority, and his mere presence made a few voices shut up as he walked in, followed by a lithe and lean, lightly armored Oznat warrior woman, her blade held at the ready.

"Shut up, Sothek." He said with a solemn flatness , as if he was scolding a young whelp who forgot how to turn off the safety lock on his rifle "We lost. Move on. There's beer in the fridge at the back of the dock, go cool your head." His words were soft, and yet they carried easily across the room, tempering the heated furor of the assembled warriors as he moved across them towards the screaming bulk of Sothek in the middle of the room.

Others would have thought Hirok was afraid, being the only one openly questioning the enraged sogarat, but both the Oznat now holding her position at the edge of the crowd and the two daturazi in the middle of it knew better. Ren'ehk had hunted beasts far larger and louder than any morat, and she knew when loud meant dangerous and when loud meant stupid. Sothek was loud, swollen and angry, yes, but his legs were not planted in a firm base, and his arms were not posed for attack or defense, just for show. Hirok, on the other hand, walked like a stalking demarok bull, purposeful and focused, saving energy by not making a lot of sound or wasting his breath with big, screamed words.

Of course, not all warriors, not even the ones that ascended to the Tempest Regiment, understood the subtleties of body language like the Packmistress or the witch soldiers did. Sothek, for example, was quick to equate his Warrior Officer's silence with weakness.

"Cool my head? Have you gone insane, officer?!" the inflection on that last word made it come off as an insult, as if he was talking to a Krakot, bound and forced to work for the war but never in it. "Look at us! We are a fighting force to be reckoned! We are the best soldiers of the galaxy!" A loud, cacophonic cheer echoed across the room as anger and frustration slowly became madness and euphoria "The humans beat us because we were held back by the EI and her lackeys! I say no more! No more!"

Ren'ehk took off her helmet as she leapt onto the shoulders of a deactivated Raizot TAG, perching herself for better line of sight to the two giants in the center of the dock. At the same moment, Hirok removed his helmet too, a pressurized hiss coming out of his armor as the breathing systems turned off, allowing the old, grizzled face of the Warrior Officer to be shown. He looked like a punched slab of beef, the Oznat thought; his face marred with scars and with a thick, scraggly and square beard that looked like it could be used to sharpen a blade on. The contrast couldn't be more obvious, even as Hirok's already stern features scrunched into pure, seething rage.

"We are not slaves!" Sothek rambled on, so immersed in his own voice he couldn't even realize the incoming danger "Come on! Let's…" He never got to finish that sentence, as a swipe of Hirok's hand took him by the left foot, raising his whole armored form into the air before slamming him face first on the floor, the clangor of the Sogarat suit smashing into the metal hull of the transport so loud it eclipsed all the roars and chants from the assembled soldiers. There was now a heavy armor-shaped dent on the ground as the warrior officer yanked his battered subordinate back to his feet.

It was over so fast, a few of the onlookers actually sighed in disappointment. From her vantage point Ren'ehk saw Sothek's fist ball up and shoot forward, so telegraphed a baby could have dodged it. Anger could make one sloppy after all, but rage, pure, white hot rage was a perfect anesthetic, and Hirok took the armored punch square on his bearded jaw, not even flinching from the impact before swinging his own fist to smash it beneath the armored plates on the Sogarat's suit. There was a point where the armor was slightly less strong, and the more experienced officer knew that suit as he knew his own skin.

A quick series of punches staggered the armored youngster but did not put him down, and he swung again with a hooking right fist that would have torn Hirok's head off had it connected with his temple as it was aimed to. Instead the warrior officer raised his shoulder, the plate buckling under the impact but allowing him to put his fist on Sothek's chest, right where he had been smacking so hard earlier. The armor at that point was bent, not soft, but bent enough to allow Hirok to get a grip by digging his fingers in, and yanking his subordinate forward, their skulls crashing against each other hard enough to make a loud crack echo through the room loudly enough to be heard over the cheering, and the crash of metal-on-metal.

Once Sothek was dazed, the warrior officer could follow up with a few punches to the head, the first hooking fist cracking the young warrior's jaw, the second splitting his eyebrow and the third laying him out on the ground, unconscious and wheezing from a broken, caved-in nose. "Is this what we have become?" Hirok bellowed as he spat in disgust at the half dead sogarat at his feet "Are we the savages…?" That was a bad word, morats were very savage. "Are we the *idiots* the humans make us out to be?"

That, more than him knocking out a younger and fully armored sogarat, made the crowd shut up. "I refuse to believe it was that easy to make all of you hardened soldiers forget our place, our duty. War is what we are, War is what we live. And war is loss." At the back of the crowd, Sophet looked up from his human skull trophy and smirked, the Warrior Officer would have made one hell of a Daturazi. "We live to fight, we are the best soldiers in the Combined Army." As he nursed his warriors' confidence back, the sogarat lowered his voice, refusing to scream even as he felt his spirit flare up with the same indignant rage the others felt.

"But we are not invincible. And to nurture that though is to be an imbecile" Hirok kicked the still unconscious form of Sothek by his feet for emphasis. No medic would dare come close to help until the order to do so was given "That the humans, these… Pan Oceanians, have defeated us is frustrating, yes. But it was our fault. We have grown complacent, overconfident… We believe in the might of our armies without remembering that the enemy also believes in their own prowess."

Hirok took his time to look at each and every assembled warrior in the room. He saw Sor'kan, fresh with his sniper lanyard, cleaning his gun and adjusting his visor. He saw the recently promoted to warrior officer Kasaro sink into his Suryat suit in shame, realizing he should have stopped Sothek himself. But most importantly, Hirok saw frustration and dismay, and that he could not accept. "I have fought what you must fight, and I have killed what you must kill. So hear me out." His tone made it seem like he was about to tell a secret, instead of scolding them all.

"The humans are dangerous. Let that thought sink in, there is no shame in accepting it. They will fight with the same tenacity and vigor as we will. They will fight dirty, they will fight fair, they will do anything in their ability to win this war…" The warrior officer paused, allowing the soldiers to think, to digest his words before he finished "And they may very well succeed."

"If we are to win this war, we must not underestimate the humans. We must not rely on the power of the Combined Army, or on the strength of our arms." There was a muffled gasp, Hirok's words nearly heretical by this point "We must use this." He tapped his temple with one armored finger "Be smarter, be stronger, be better. Learn from this loss, learn from every loss." He once more took his time to look into every assembled soldier. "We will wipe out or assimilate every human in this wretched space, but to do so, we must be true soldiers, true warriors. Do not allow this setback to turn us into maniacs, but learn from it…"

Finally the warrior officer allowed himself a grin "And yes, do get angry. But save it for when you have a human in your sights. Then, by all means, kill him and every last one of their friends you can see!" That brought a cheer to the assembly's voice "We will return, stronger, deadlier, and we will win! More fights are coming, so don't waste your energy fighting your own brothers…" Once more he allowed himself to grin "Unless it's a sotarak, of course, then you're welcome to get your asses kicked by yours truly."A more honest cheer rose from the ranks now.

Taking a mocking bow, the warrior officer picked his helmet up "Now feast! Drink! Relax. Punch a friend out if you need to." He kicked Sothek's body again "But I want to hear talk of strategy and tactics, not treason. I want to hear talk of victory, not defeat. We are morat and we never lose. If anyone needs me, I will be at the officer's room talking with the aspects. Enjoy your little rest and relaxation, warriors."

There was no cheer when the Warrior Officer left, but there was no need for it. His job was done.

Away from the main crowd, Ren'ehk snickered, watching the warrior officer move and observing the assembled males and their body language. Tension was in the air, but it was being directed, instead of just vented out it was being shaped and put to use, the difference between a plasma discharge and a faulty engine pipe. The huntress looked down and nodded to the two witches beneath her, figuring they both had come to the same conclusion: the crisis had been averted.

Jumping down from her perch, Ren'ehk moved to intercept Hirok's bulk, chuckling at him.

"Do you actually believe that?"

"What?" the warrior officer stopped, looking at the Oznat. She had white eyes, a not uncommon feature but exotic enough to add a little something to her looks "That we can win this war? Yes, of course." His tone almost felt like he was calling her silly just for questioning it, but the packmistress knew better

"I sense a 'but' after that sentence." She nudged him with the back of her blade, leaning in as if she was about to tell, or most likely hear, a secret.

"But nothing. I meant every word. Humans are smart, they're fractured, they're squabbling against each other for silly concepts like land or profit while we encroach, but they are smart and tenacious. If they ever got united, then maybe they would pose a real threat. As it is… We can win this war."

Ren'ehk raised an eyebrow "We can. Not we will" She smiled, licking her lips as if she was anticipating a fight already.

"I'm not dumb. Nothing is certain. But I will fight, and If I go down it will be swinging. Does that answer your question, packmistress?" The older warrior officer nudged her back, nearly knocking the lithe Oznat on her ass by the sheer weight of his body.

"Yeah, that's enough. Funny, I never thought you Sogarats were so thoughtful."

"And I never thought Oznats weren't screaming maniacs. Want to join me? I could use an advisor with brains." Hirok resumed moving, not caring if the Oznat followed him or not. But she did, her white eyes gleaming as she imagined where they could be deployed next. A challenge was always welcome, but victory was never certain.


	3. Storm Dancer

**STORM DANCER**

Bullets trailed along the armored bulk of the warehouse, a Domaru Butai lowering his head behind cover and clutching where the heavy caliber projectile had detonated inside his suit, the reactive armor turning what would have been a lethal blow into merely inconvenient. It still hurt like mad, and he knew he couldn't put his head up again or the alien war machine currently spraying his and his fireteam's position with heavy machinegun fire would turn him into bloody pulp.

A Raizot TAG was not a war machine. It was a tool for hunters, for the more savage and violent of the red skinned alien morats to be able to fight and kill the beasts of their home planet in hand to hand combat. The Storm Dancer, the name etched on the machine's scarred right shoulder plate as if to announce its name to all humans it was about to kill, was a blood red beast, roughly fourteen feet tall and so extremely heavy its armored dewclaws cracked into the pavement when it moved. Its head was customized to look like a fanged monster, and the skull of some giant reptilian alien hung from its back as a grisly trophy. It made a constant, thrumming roar as its heavy gun shot over and over again, riddling the armored warehouse with bullets.

"Oyat, that's enough!" A gruff voice roared on the pilot's headset. Inside her armored suit, Oyat Karakot, the young yet highly accomplished pilot grinned from ear to ear, ignoring her commander's orders and continuing to riddle the human's last position with high powered bullets, each one the size of her balled fist. She often joked that using a machinegun was like punching the enemy at a distance and some other pilots would even agree with her at that.

"Oyat, our time is running out" another voice, this one much calmer and feminine, sounded on her communication device "I can see some more of the human warriors advancing on the left flank. I will create a distraction and you move on, complete your objective"

The pilot huffed and rolled her eyes as the clip of her heavy gun emptied. She never let the weapon click as the sound cue was often enough to signal any predators around that she was open for a strike, so as soon as the ammo counter on her visor hit zero, she let the trigger go and slid the magazine off the long, heavy gun of her Tactical Armored Gear. "Okay, sis." she answered while reloading "I've got the humans hunkered down, what was I supposed to do again?" a smirk on her lips as she asked. Oyat wasn't dumb or airheaded, but she knew pretending to be so was one of the few things that could make her usually stoic sister lose her temper.

"Ammo dump. Twenty paces to your right. Blow it up" Ren'ehk's voice was short, crisp and violent. "I see the humans coming. Here's your distraction." The packmistress was too far away for even the enhanced optic sensors of the heavy TAG to pick her up, but a loud detonation several hundred paces to her left followed by billowing clouds of oily smoke told Oyat her sister had indeed engaged the human fighters on the other side of the field.

There was a hiss and a clack of metal opening as the pilot slid off the armored cockpit, flexing her lean, muscular arms and stretching her legs as if she were on a holiday stroll. Looking around, it seemed the humans had diverted all their attention to the left flank, and even through the smoke she could see flashes of gunfire and flamethrowers as the battle raged on. "Tch. Lucky girl" Oyat smirked to herself, imagining how much fun her sister was having right now.

Ren'ehk wasn't having any fuThat meant her team, made up of herself and four of the so called 'Hungries', was perfect to deal with dug in forces like the two humans she was about to charge. The Hungries were insect like alien beasts used as terror troops by the Morat Aggression Forces, and as an Oznat Ren'ehk was used to wrangling and controlling these creatures. Her team consisted of a single male, called a Preta by humans, and three females, called Gakis. They looked very similar to each other for the untrained eye, but the huntress could tell the difference merely by listening to how they moved, as the heavier male made a more distinctive sound.

If she were the one drawing the battle plan, she would have kept the Ikadron on the back lines, closer to the commander, to serve as a last line of defense should the humans break through her assault. Her team was much better suited for the close combat these humans were so fond of, while the Ikadron, as effective a war machine as it was, had slow reflexes and could only really defend itself up close by blanketing the area with flames or electric shocks. But there was no sense in complaining now. Actions spoke louder than words.

Breaking through the smoke cover, the Packmistress pulled up her vulkan shotgun and aimed. She had never been a good shot, maybe that was why she had never tried to hunt inside a Raizot. Or maybe she just felt more comfortable around beasts than others of her own kind. It didn't really matter, all that mattered was that the first human warrior was quickly turned into molten metal and flesh under her not so accurate, superheated shots. Vulkan shotguns fired shells filled with highly flammable material that erupted into a long gout of fire once they hit their mark, making aiming nearly unnecessary.

One of her beasts let out a subsonic growl and the Oznat turned in time to meet the second human's blade with her own, screeching to call the other three hungries to her side and surround the armored man with her snarling, clawing and biting alien monsters. Ren'ehk was a master fighter, or at least she thought so until meeting these… It took her a moment to think about the different types of humans and which ones these were… The word was Samurai, or so she thought.

These Samurai fought like the megafauna from her own world. A single man was almost as deadly as her whole hunting pack, and she found herself clashing blade to blade way more often than she would have liked it. He was just so fast, and his armor made him as strong as her unarmored form, allowing him to shrug off her blows whenever they connected, while she had to weave out of the way when his blades came swinging back down, turning their battle into a deadly dance.

An underhanded swing from the human warrior had the packmistress reeling, raising her feet and screaming in pain as the blade tore into her thigh armor and grazed her skin, the cut lacking any real danger but still burning and making her leg kick out in reflex. Another sword came swinging from the opposite direction and Ren'ehk raised her own blade up to block it, only to watch in shock as bone blade met highly resistant, subsonic vibrating metal in a clash that had the Oznat's blade sheared cleanly through.

Letting out a shrill call, the huntress kicked at her enemy's armored chest, pushing herself and the human in opposite directions. She needed to put some distance between herself and the samurai, so with a series of quick clicks of her tongue she called for her Gaki beasts to swarm the armored warrior, allowing herself to get a small distance between them. The large, rabid creatures were no match for the human warrior, though, and he quickly cut one of them in half just like he had done to the drone not a few minutes ago.

The Oznat allowed herself to smirk as the acidic blood of the Gaki reacted with the atmosphere and caused a catastrophic, caustic detonation that even engulfed a few other of her beasts, leaving only herself and the single Preta alive… As well as the human warrior. His armor was half melted and pockmarked with damage, singed from fire, and blood leaked from a few cracks, the human warrior staggering for a moment as the packmistress raised her shotgun again, putting two shots into his chest, ending his life.

Meanwhile, far away from her sister's frantic and nearly unsuccessful scramble for life, Oyat was busy setting an explosive charge on an ammo drum. "And one... two… three" she said to herself before signaling for the commander "This is Oyat, charges are set. Tell the Worm to blow them up, I'm going back to my Raizot" She didn't even wait for the warrior officer's confirmation, running as fast as she could towards her TAG even while the whole ammo dump went up in flames, the blazing fire so high it could be seen from miles away.

There was a long, siren like call that chilled the bones of the dug in human warriors as the Storm Dancer fired a few shots in the air in ecstasy "Come on, you apes! Let's finish this!" the pilot called out with her suit's loudspeakers in a horrible, mangled english accent that was barely understood by the humans inside the warehouse she was about to storm. It was common knowledge between the morats who had been fighting against humans that they were called 'apes' or 'monkeys' by the soft skinned humans, so, having noticed the similarities between their species, many morats had begun to return the favor.

"Oyat, fall back! Keep your suppressive fire position" The commander, a young Suryat who had been away from the fight so far, his only contribution the occasional short, controlled burst of suppressive fire, tried in vain to rein in the even younger pilot. She could even hear his sighing over the communication link as her machine thundered in, gun already firing even before she actually saw the enemy.

Kasaro cursed under his breath, tightening his grip around the reassuring bulk of his hemat heavy machinegun as he thought up a backup plan for when the reckless Raizot got herself incapacitated or killed "Ren'ehk, advance on the left, see if you can cover her as she comes up their right. I'll hold here if they break through."

"Yes, commander." the Oznat grit her teeth and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, calling for the lonely male who had survived the skirmish with the two human samurai "Should I go save my sister?" she asked the beast as if it could answer back, running her fingers along its crested head while catching her breath. Her left thigh throbbed and she had a limp, her five beast pack had been reduced to two, and her blade was gone.

Ren'ehk looked at her own claws, wondering how they'd measure up against human armor before picking up one of the human weapons from the ground and testing its weight. She took a few tentative swings with it, noting how it was much heavier than her bone sword, and how the gleam of the metal made it easier to spot without the optical disruptor to camouflage it "This will do" she said out loud to fix the idea in her mind, then snapped her tongue again, making the last of the Hungries lead the way as she brought up the rear, shotgun at the ready.

Far away from her limping sister, Oyat was euphoric. She rounded a corner and completely evaporated an armored human under a barrage of shots, then swung her heavy machine around a half destroyed container to trade fire with the rest of his squad. Once a Raizot got moving, it was hard to stop, the heavy machine building momentum and rolling like a charging bull, its gun held with both hands to keep it stable as it kicked and roared, the muzzle flash visible even as it dashed into the blazing fire of the now destroyed ammo dump.

"Come on! Shoot faster!" the pilot's voice was amplified by her suit, booming out into the cacophony of the shooting to taunt the humans and whip herself into a frenzy. It felt satisfying, the neural feedback of the TAG making it feel as if she was holding the bucking heavy machinegun on her own hands, arms sweeping left and right as she sprayed indiscriminate fire over the defenders. "The storm has come!" she kept on, roaring and dashing from cover to cover, trying to get closer to use her flamethrower and roast the humans alive.

Now, credit where it is due, the four remaining humans did not falter under her unrelenting fire. Two of them closer to the Raizot opened up with a light machinegun and a pistol respectively, drawing her attention while the two further back pulled up a pair of exquisite, long, tube like weapons. Those were called Blitzens, expendable weapons that fired a single, high powered projectile that detonated a short burst of electromagnetic discharge once they hit the mark, perfect for rendering highly complex machinery useless for a short, but decisive time.

Oyat didn't see the two humans line up their shots even as their compatriots were wounded by her reckless fire, but she did feel it in her bones when the burst of energy hit her machine and fried several of its circuits. The TAG seemed to choke, its gun arm bucking and firing a few more shots aimlessly before it went silent and still, turned into little more than an armored coffin with the pilot inside. Even her comms were fried, making it impossible for the young morat to contact her officer and admit her failure.

Their base was burning, but the humans had a chance to win the day now. The morats had brought a transponder with them, a beacon to call for extraction that would be very useful if the humans could capture it and reverse engineer the technology. If they could have it. The remaining samurai knew what to do as the four man team broke out of the burning warehouse and started running towards the established command post were Kasaro and a small group of remaining troops stood guard.

The gleaming white, skull like mask of the Suryat armor seemed to glower as it reflected the flames, Kasaro's heavy machinegun barking as he unleashed a short burst, trying to suppress the advance of the humans. They didn't care, their leader using a lighter, but no less effective weapon to riddle the warrior officer's position with fire and allow his team to close in from the side, moving to entrap the suryat and end him there.

Kasaro cursed and spat on the ground as he ducked, a lucky shot denting his helmet and forcing him to rip it off and toss the horned, skull faced headgear to the ground. He was young, his face red and his white hair and beard cut short and square, making him look very much like an angry, horned ape as he spat again, chewing on his own bile in anger. He heard a call, a challenge, and rose in time to use his gun to block a downwards slash from one of the human warriors, as a single soldier came at him.

The Suryat recognized the human's markings as a commander, and growled as he drew his sword. He hadn't used it in such a long time, he barely remembered the basics of hand to hand combat. while the human commander clearly had been doing it his whole life, his swings short, precise and deadly. It wasn't a gracious dance like it had been between Ren'ehk and the two invisible ones, it was short, brutal and ugly.

The human swung low, the blade cutting through the Suryat's armor and shearing off a piece of his stomach and groin plates. Then he swung again, a swift backhand that should have torn the young warrior officer's head off, but a quick riposte, more luck than skill, saved his life. Kasaro had one chance, and he made it, driving his own blade into the human's midsection, putting as much strength as his muscles and the enhanced servos of his suit would let him, and felt something give under his weight. There was an ear piercing shriek of metal on metal as his blade tore out of the samurai's back, covered in blood and coolant fluid.

As he shook the human free from his blade, kicking him off it for dramatic purposes, Kasaro saw himself surrounded by the three others, snarling and beating his chest with the bloody blade to dare them to come at him. He knew his luck wouldn't hold up against three more of the close combat specialists, specially not if they attacked together, but if he could hold them just a little longer, one of the two sisters would complete their objective, and the mission would be done, his life be damned.

Inside her silent, cold TAG, Oyat fumed. She looked around the dark machine and then remembered a little trick she would do when trapped under rubble or even the dead bulk of a Demarok collapsing on top of her machine. She just had to hook one of her dewclaws on the lower base of the pilot seat, then wrap her legs around it, this way she could flex and push, growling in a very undignified position that was enough to force the tag to open, allowing her to slip off it. She had to wriggle and squirm, the neural connecting cables on her scalp snagging on the tiny opening and ripping off along with some of her hair, but she managed to free herself from the now useless machine.

"I'll come back for you, big girl" she tapped the thigh of her armored steed to reassure it, then pulled up her pistols. A glance behind her and the sounds of shooting and roaring told her that her commander was getting his ass handed to him, but she didn't care. There was a mission to be completed after all.

The fire in the ammo dump was a distraction, meant to force the humans out of the warehouse, to make them come engage the morats. However, the real prize was much smaller, much more dangerous. When the Raxxora Carrier fell many months ago, it was cannibalized and torn apart, its parts sold, stolen or just plain repurposed, and many of the rescue beacons used by strike teams just like her own had been stolen. Recovering these beacons was a top priority.

One of these was being studied in this very same facility the fighting had now reduced to mostly rubble, and Oyat knew it was inside another building, a small office behind the blazing warehouse. The pilot broke into a run, schewing cover or stealth as she knew the humans were either fighting her sister or her commander, and time was running low. Even with her communications link burnt off, she knew they had precious few minutes left before human reinforcements arrived and the fight became unwinnable.

She watched as the Ikadron batroid her commander had sent in to flush out the human armored soldiers was completely bisected, head to groin, by a single sword slash coming from an armored human that looked like some hellish beast. He had been using some sort of optical disruptor trick to appear nearly invisible, but the flames had burned it off, even if they failed to actually damage the armored suit.

Ikadrons were expendable, but valuable tools. The heavy, lumbering gait of the combat drones was deceptively nimble, and they carried extra ammo and supplies as well as a pair of light flamethrowers that were excellent to deny cover and destroy high tech gear such as the Optical Disruptors the humans were so fond of.

There were two of those humans, two heavily armored, sword swinging warriors as nimble and skilled on their feet as the hunting beasts the packmistress had by her side, and she could tell her pets were snarling and eager to be let loose onto the human warriors "Ren'ehk, you are go" the commander spoke with some reverence towards the seasoned Oznat as she readied a pair of smoke grenades, breaking cover to hurl them over the heads of the human warriors.

"I told you the Ikadron was not necessary" she snapped as the humans got lost in the oily black smoke. "I don't need to see to kill these humans" Ren'ehk was, for the first time in a long while, livid with anger. As an Oznat, she was used to hunting in a pack, often with the help of the larger males as she would flush the larger beasts she couldn't kill on her own or with the help of her pets towards a group of stronger, better armed males to finish the job. The same tactic worked in combat, just swapping large, extremely predatory megafauna for cowardly, armored humans.

She didn't even use a door. There was a loud crash of shattering glass and splintered metal as a six foot tall, red skinned alien woman burst through the rightmost window of the office, her exposed stomach bleeding from many tiny cuts, and a shard of glass embedded on her left dewclaw as she raised both pistols and cut down the lonely guard of the place. He tried to turn and shoot at her, but she was both faster and a better shot, and soon his lifeless body was slumped, bleeding against a wall.

It was fast, the beacon was stowed in a box marked with a Combined Army symbol, and while she couldn't open it, carrying it on her back was easy enough. Oyat was about to get out when the door was flung open and at the lightly armored form of Ren'ehk stood in the threshold "Where's your TAG?" the packmistress asked with a snarl.

"Incapacitated. I had to eject to complete the mission" Oyat answered while showing the box with the beacon "We should hurry, I think-"

"You don't think" the Oznat snarled again, angry, but not raising her voice as she talked "If you had thought, you'd have stayed outside and kept the Domaru at bay while I circled around and got this" Ren'ehk scolded even as she, her sister and the sole preta stalked back, still looking for more humans. "Commander." she opened her commlink "We got the beacon."

"Good!" Kasaro managed a laugh as he ordered the last Ikadron to put itself in front of the three human warriors, stalling them just enough for the wounded warrior officer to retreat. There was very little of their strike team left, and the Suryat didn't want to be on the casualty list too. "I'll pull back with the rest of the team and we meet at the rendezvous point" he was calm, even at the possibility of a bloody and violent death. Suryats lived for war, and this was living.

"Can you send the Mechanoid to repair the Storm Dancer?" Ren'ehk asked "If it's brought back online we can use it to cover your retreat" Behind her, Oyat beamed. She was ready to forsake her machine, but now it seemed like it would not be lost yet.

"Not the Mechanoid, but I can send a drone." he answered while vaulting over a container, then pushing it over to stall the progress of the human soldiers. Behind him, the wriggling, worm like form of the Med-tech Mechanoid bobbed its bulbous head and clicked its tiny pincers in understanding, its mind travelling to command the small, agile drone waiting for orders at the other side of the compound to rush towards the last position of the Raizot.

Even when operating through a drone, the technical prowess of a Med-Tech was hard to rival. It managed to get the TAG up and running just in time as the two sisters reached it, and the younger one quickly climbed onto her heavy machine, already feeling herself electrified with the sudden return of her enhanced senses and strength.

Oyat moved her arm, and the Storm Dancer moved its own, raising the heavy machinegun and… There was a weight on her arm as something tugged on the long, heavy gun, pulling it down after some effort "no" Ren'ehk said "If we keep fighting, we'll lose the chance to evacuate. You run now." she said to the machine, looking up to glare at its glowing yellow eyes, unfazed by its size, strength or fearsome, animalistic looks.

The Raizot actually stomped in protest, but a quick look at the packmistress made the machine turn and starting running, its heavy steps smashing the ground whenever the metal claws dug in for balance. Ren'ehk let out a sigh as her sister listened to her for what felt like the first time, then pulled out the last of her smoke grenades for a risky, dangerous shot.

She was tired, her leg still throbbed, and her head had this steady ringing on it that meant a headache was coming like a charging war beast. Yet the Oznat had a strong hand, her arm swinging as she sent the grenade flying high in an arc, bouncing off at an angle against a building's walls to land between the evacuating officer and the pursuing humans, giving him a minute of respite to put some distance between them.

The Oznat allowed herself to smile. Then, with a click of her tongue, she called her last pet to her side and began running, pushing herself and ignoring the pain on her leg. She could match the TAG in speed, even if she had to drop to all fours to do so, her claws digging in too as she had to use her hands to compensate for her limping leg. She could already hear the call of their dropship as it came in fast to pick up what was left of the fireteam.

"Oyat?"

"Ren?"

"You're an idiot, reckless and immature. But good job." Ren'ehk could swear she heard a little chuckle over her commlink "You're still getting punished for ignoring orders, though. I'll make sure of that. How about latrine duty? For the Hungries."

There was another chuckle on the comms as Ren'ehk was the last to board their dropship. Of the entire strike team, only the officer, the med-tech, a hacker, the Raizot and the Oznat with her single Preta had survived, out of fourteen sent in. It had been a horrible, horrible mess, but the mission was accomplished, and that was enough.

As she removed her helmet, the gear fashioned from the skull of a Hungry alpha, Ren'ehk looked around the ship, sighing and nursing her thigh. one hand peeling her armor open to finally look at the cut, how it had swollen and looked infected. "hey, Ren?" The smaller form of her sister sat by her side, looking at the cut as if it was some novelty toy.

Ren'ehk didn't answer, she was too tired for it and as adrenaline was leaving her system a gigantic headache mounted on, her muscles feeling sore and painful from all the fighting and running. Instead she just closed her eyes and rested her head against the bulk of the ship, feeling the steady vibrations as it climbed out of the atmosphere, back to where their new assault carrier waited.

"Thanks. You know, for helping me save the TAG." Oyat knew they didn't have to repair the machine, her sister could have covered their escape with her smoke grenades just fine.

"Violence without purpose is just savagery." The Oznat finally said, eyes still closed as she pinched the bridge of her nose "Just because you are the size of a beast doesn't mean you have to act like one. Next time I might not be here to help." the packmistress eased her shoulders, not bothering to look at her sister as she talked.

"Yes." The younger huntress nodded, recollecting the lessons from their history books "I will be less reckless in the future."

"You won't."

Oyat chuckled, a twinkle in her white eyes "I probably won't, you're right. But…" it took her a long moment to remember something suitably poetic to say back to her sister. Ren'ehk had a passion for philosophy, and the pilot knew she would never quite earn her sister's respect if she could not match the ancient words of philosophers like Eugarat to her own actions "Through conflict, we are shaped." the younger one settled on an easy one for now "Give me time, will you?"

Ren'ehk nodded, smiling to herself "Yes. I will give you time. But you're still facing punishment. Don't worry, I'm friends with the superior warrior officer…" Finally opening her eyes, the packmistress looked at her sister and their eyes met, both of them had matching white eyes, but Oyat's looked like two bright stars, while her sister's had the cold fire of tempered steel "I'll make sure your punishment is sufficiently humiliating for our enjoyment." Once more the Oznat allowed herself a smile, her headache making it small, but it was enough.

With a smirk, the pilot stood up, hissing as she remembered she had a glass shard embedded between her toes, and decided to go find a doctor. Well, if she was going to face some kind of grueling, cruel and unusual punishment, she was going to make sure she at least had her feet healed first. She didn't say 'Thank you' again, as it felt unnecessary, but she did feel oddly thankful. It was said that the regiment was the only family of a morat, and the pilot was finally understanding why her sister acted the way she did.

Oyat sat down in front of the Med-tech Mechanoid and pointed at her bloody feet, the half machine half living creature nodding its odd, multi-eyed head and lowering itself to work on it. Meanwhile, the pilot pulled up her comlog and opened up one of the Treaties from Eugarat on Battle and War. Maybe there was something more to being a warrior, and maybe it was time the huntress started learning about that.


	4. Treason

**TREASON**

Ren'ehk was feeling satisfied today. She finished locking her hunting animals in their respective pens and smiled to herself at the coordination of this new pack, as she had whipped the new group into shape in what felt like record timing. Usually, she took a couple of weeks to extract the better of a new pack once the last one was depleted, but this time it took her less than four days to make the animals follow her every command without any doubt or hesitation. Yes, it felt good.

The Hungries were expendable, everyone in the Combined Army knew that, and so she had no attachment to this pack or any of the others she had commanded before, but still it felt rewarding to see she had gotten to the point where imposing her will over the creatures was as easy as walking forward. Of course, she could just use neural implants like many others of her kind did, but she was an antiquated female in so many ways. She still enjoyed beating and growling and forcing them to obey rather than just poking their brains with an electric stick and calling it 'dominance'.

Of course, if she was satisfied, it meant something was about to ruin her day, and that something was a young commander in full Suryat armor. The Oznat turned a corner, right out of the Hungry pens, and saw the young Warrior Officer moving towards her, his helmet off and his face looking intent. Kasaro was the youngest Warrior Officer in the Karanatat, the Morat word for regiment, she served in. He had been promoted for his courage and leadership during the Wotan Incursion and so far he had proved time and again that promotion had been well earned.

Even now, at a moment that could be called 'leisurely', Kasaro wore his full armor, and the huntress could see the pockmarks of battle scarring doting his suit, the maintenance always focused on keeping it effective, not good looking. The Officer's face itself was bearing some marks, as his left cheek was swollen, a purple sheen marking where a fist had smashed into his red face, and his eyebrow and lips were split, the white hair showing some red where it had been scalped off. However, while he had the marks of combat, his wounds were not severe and his stance was relaxed. He had been training, not fighting.

"Packmistress" Kasaro nodded respectfully, even though he was technically her superior, he preferred to show the female due respect as he had witnessed her ferocity and guile in combat way too many times to think himself actually superior to her "I've been looking for you"

"Yes?" the Oznat's white eyes narrowed. Her first thought was the Officer wanted her opinion on some tactical matter, something she really had no patience for right now. If she had wanted to be a soldier, she'd have become a Zerat "What is it... Officer?" She had to choke back the word 'whelp' before it came out. It was hard not to see Kasaro as barely out of his Kurdat, the word translating very loosely to a gang of young cadets fresh from childhood, still learning the ways of real war.

"It is a sensible matter" the Suryat spoke while only his eyes moved to check their surroundings. Thankfully, the Oznat was an early riser even for the standards of her kind, which meant they were mostly alone "Here." He handed her a piece of… It actually took a long moment for the huntress to realize it was paper. It was a folder, small and easily destroyed. Untraceable "Have a look. I am not good with words"

As a rule, Morats weren't good with words. There was a lot about Kasaro's stance that told her what she had to know. He was relaxed, yet his eyes moved swiftly, so he wasn't careless. His body was still tense, coiled back from his recent training, and his fists were balled, the armored fingers pressed against his palms in a defensive yet casual position. He wasn't nervous, but he was wary of something.

Ren'ehk took the folder and opened it, her eyes skimming the contents fast as she riffled through the few pages making it up. As she read, her own body language changed as well, her dewclaws shifting from facing the Warrior Officer to facing outwards, bracing for a pounce. Her muscular arms and thighs tensed up, pulling back like bowstrings about to be released. Kasaro noticed it, bracing himself for a reaction he knew was going to happen, yet hoped it did not...

It all happened in the blink of an eye, and someone less trained in the subtleties of Morat language would not have seen it coming. Ren'ehk crumpled the hardback paper on one hand while the other drew her sword in a quick, sideways slash aimed at the throat, a perfect, curt yet vicious killing blow.

The Suryat was getting better at close combat by now, and he managed to parry her strike just in time, raising the broader, heavier armored gauntlet of his suit "Listen to me, Ren'ehk" he snarled, pushing her back and using his size and weight to his advantage as he tried to grab her forearm, to keep that long, elegant blade from separating his head from his shoulders "This is important"

"It is treason" she swung around, planting one of her dewclaws on his chest and knocking him on his armored ass with the grace of a ballerina. That grace was deceptive, though, as the Oznat stomped down with the force of a Gurlanak beast, her foot denting his suit where it connected with the chest plate armor.

This was going to be rough. Kasaro was not a close combat specialist, and while his suit did give him extra protection, the barely armored female could match it in speed and strength, and unlike him, she had murder in her eyes. "Listen to me" he grabbed her foot with both hands and swung around, putting all his weight behind the move to whip her into the farthest wall before her blade could come down again "This zealous loyalty to the Combined Army will lead us nowhere." he managed to say as he stood up, bracing himself.

Ren'ehk hit the wall with a resounding thud that actually made her grin. The little whelp was getting smarter. Attacking a better armored opponent without her pack seemed like a dumb thing to do, but she was armed and he was not, so she changed tactics, starting to circle around the Warrior Officer, looking for an opening.

"Listen to me, packmistress" Even now his tone was respectful and low, his voice did not raise and his nostrils remained quiet. He was not afraid. This was his chance to convince her before he was drowned in a tide of precise blade slashes "You were in Wotan. You saw how they left us high and dry. We are expendable." Morat language was more than just words, and his gestures and stance, the way he waved them in a broad sweep and lowered his center of mass, added to the meaning behind his statement. The Suryat was not talking about the soldiers, but about their species as a whole, Morats were little more than cannon fodder for the Combined Army, just like the beasts stuck back in the pens.

She struck high, he raised his hand again, the blade biting into his suit and sticking into it, getting locked for a split second "I'm asking for a favor" he punched her in the jaw, his armored fist smashing so hard she felt the bone dislocate under her skull as she spun back, dazed and nearly knocked out "You don't even have to fight. Just help us set up the perimeter".

Ren'ehk growled as she stumbled back, taking the moment to set her jaw back into place, her grin lacking mirth now. Another blow like that and she'd be down for the count, or worse. She launched into a flurry of short, precise strikes, attacking in a series of short stabs that were aimed at keeping the much larger male back, pushing him slowly against the metal wall of the corridor.

Kasaro let out a grunt that was choking his throat, his armor getting several new cuts as he tried to back off without getting stabbed through one of the softer parts. One stab even nicked off his beard, cutting just slightly under his chin and tinting the white hair red. "I want you to realize one thing." he managed to say as his back thunked against the wall "We're doing this. It's going to happen. You can come and ensure we do it correctly, or we can go and do it anyways."

Appealing to her rational side made the Oznat stop with her blade inches from stabbing through his neck "I am not your mother" She snarled "Even if I was, I wouldn't care." She said as she held the blade, ready to put an end to his life.

"The regiment is our family. We all care, Ren'ehk, we all have fought and bled for one another." the Warrior Officer managed a smile, an honest one too "Are you more loyal to the Combined Army or to the Supremacy?" The question felt loaded, the kind of pointless conundrum she shouldn't even have to consider, yet here she was actually pontificating an answer when the Suryat helped her "We need your help".

"Does Hirok know?" She lowered the blade, his words worming their way into her mind as she sheathed the sword back at her waist, even taking a step back to let him get his back off the wall.

"No. I don't intend on telling him until we have the files. Are you in?" Now his nostrils flared, and his grin, despite the blood clotting on his beard and teeth, was sly and short. He was actually excited, or perhaps relieved.

Ren'ehk looked at the crumpled folder she had dropped on the corridor, moving to pick it up and read it again "Fine. But this time, you bloody well listen to me." she said as she opened it again "Here's what we will do…"

In the end, the Suryat felt quite happy for getting the Oznat's help. If he was going to strike at a heavily defended Onyx compound, he would rather have an experienced huntress at his side than going for one of the younger, less experienced ones that would have been way easier to recruit but equally less useful in an actual fight.

Ever since the Wotan fiasco a strong feeling of resentment and abandonment was growing within the Aggression Forces, and as much as he would rather take it out on the humans, Kasaro understood that it was time the Supremacy began moving away from the Combined Army, even if that detachment came in slow, careful steps. This was going to be the test run, a simple mission to steal several data packs detailing locations of Onyx bases and supply depots. In the event of a separatist war, these details could keep the Combine from glassing another Morat planet.

Of course, it was still treason, and this was why most of Kasaro's forces was composed of young, highly idealistic troopers who could easily be swayed to fight for the reestablishment of the Supremacy. It did carry the issue of these young fighters not being as competent as he would have liked, but the Warrior Officer was confident he could do it with the troops he had.

The compound itself was small, ugly and jagged looking as if someone had decided to carve out the buildings from long shards of obsidian like rock. Every surface gleamed black and smooth, absorbing the light so even though the illumination was actually very thorough, it still felt dark and oppressive to thread between the buildings and under the ever watching gaze of the Umbra operatives.

Kasaro had counted three of them, two of the hooded, masked Legates and one of the tall, lean, smoke like Samaritans. No one really knew where the Umbra species had come from, how their civilization started or how the Combined Army recruited them. What was known was that the Umbra were red skinned, tall and lean humanoids with an affinity for Vodootech and a religious devotion to the Evolved Intelligence that made the Daturazi Witch Soldiers sound like reasonable folks.

Their first insertion was, for all intents and purposes, a great big failure, with the strike team being discovered as soon as their Q-Drone advanced into an optimal overwatch position, and from there everything went to hell faster than a pack of cubs wandering into a Demarok Den. The drone was obliterated in a hail of precise machinegun fire from an unknown threat, the darkness of the compound giving some advantage to the Onyx operatives and their penchant for fighting in black.

Sor'kan, the Yaogat leading the sniper team for this mission, was quickly suppressed by that same machinegun, hunkering down behind a wall as steady, controlled fire peppered his position with such grim efficiency he didn't dare raising his head and risk getting it shot off. There was this silly idea in most people's minds that Morats never took cover, but most of them knew when to brave gunfire and when not to, even if occasionally they did try and run through gunfire with the kind of casual coolness that made it feel as if they didn't actually fear bullets.

However, the situation was not one for leisure walks through the enemy gunline. Not when that machinegun nest was suppressing both the sniper and the Warrior Officer himself, as he was pinned behind several stacked crates, cursing the precision of the enemy shooters. What started bad soon turned downright horrible when a shadow moved along their right flank. Kasaro saw it jump from building to building, a black cloud of smoke with only the vaguest humanoid shape to it, as if the night sky itself had decided it was going to fight for the Onyx forces.

"Umbra! On the right" the Officer roared into his comlink even as he tried to find any angle to shoot at that thing, watching in horror as it jumped down behind his hacker and… It was hard to describe what exactly happened. Maybe it was the dim night light, or maybe Kasaro was too angry to see it properly, but he could swear he saw the smoke coalesce into a seven feet tall, red skinned humanoid wearing wispy black clothes, the thing raising its hand up and draining the very life out of the hacker.

It was disgusting and revolting, yet there was nothing he could do but watch as his soldier was drained, his red skin turning pale, then grey, dessicated and bristling while the Umbra seemed to grow, the smoke around it bulging out with a grotesque, fleshy gurgle that made the stomach churn. Kasaro gripped his gun and attempted to move around, actually diving through the enemy machinegun's line of fire, his suit taking the brunt of the shots just so he could let loose with his own gun, squeezing off a precise burst that did nothing on the ethereal creature's hide.

He was shooting smoke, his bullets piercing through the billowing dark cloak with zero efficacy, high impact shots doing little more than annoying the large creature and putting him on its radar. "I've got it distracted." the warrior officer snarled into his coms, hailing their transport as it flew nearby "Lorkan, come in from the right flank. You have an opening. Use it" he grit his teeth, bracing his gun against his shoulder and firing again, focused on the writhing, barely visible form of the Umbra "Look at me, you ugly son of a worm." his voice cool, calm and relaxed even as anger boiled inside him "Come at me." his bursts short and controlled as he tried his best to keep the enemy focused on himself, drawing as much attention as he could.

Lorkan was a Rasyat, a diplomatic operative, although Morat diplomacy basically meant they were the first to shoot the enemy. He had been waiting for a while now, alone in the ship hold and ready to jump out. The original idea had been to use their hacker to triangulate a perfect drop position right on top of the enemy database, but now that the hacker was wasting away turned into a dessicated husk, he'd have to be much more careful. His gravitational parachute had to land a little off the combat zone, and he finished the insertion on foot, running under the cover of the taller buildings on the right side of the compound.

Lorkan had always been supposed to be the only one to get to the Onyx database, but on an ideal world he'd have dropped down later in the fight, when there were way less enemies on the field. Right now, he was facing horrible odds, sneaking behind tall walls and moving silently until he noticed something slink into the shadows to his left, moving in a barely heard whisper. "Found another Umbra" he relayed as if he had found an scurrying rodent.

"Take it down" Kasaro ordered as he coordinated with Sor'kan to pin the smoke monster assaulting their backline down. Thankfully the Samaritan had came from the right flank, taking out the hacker and two of the supporting Yaogats, but leaving their Med-tech mechanoid unmolested, as Kasaro hoped at least one of the warriors felled by that wispy cloud of nanotech bullcrap could be nursed back to life.

The Rasyat grunted an acknowledgment and moved in swiftly, pulling his shotgun up and putting two shots into the chest, or at least what he thought was the chest, of the red skinned creature. It even tried to raise a shotgun back to return fire, but Lorkan was faster. For a moment he marveled at his weapon and the one on the dead Umbra's hand, noticing that even though they worked similarly, they were very different in design and even ammunition. The Combined Army would never allow the Morats to use their truly advanced tech, even for such simple, small arms.

Moving nimbly among the buildings, Lorkan finally got a chance to see what was shooting at his commander and sniper team, taking the moment to spit on the ground, then rub his close cropped beard in pondering "Got visual of the machinegun nest. They have a Rodok fireteam on overwatch. I see a missile launcher too" he reported with clear disgust in his voice.

Rodoks were a new addition to the Morat Agression Forces, using much more technology than most of their troops had access to, with light armor, mimetic skin protection, and even jump packs. Most Morats would be naturally disdainful of the newer forces, as most of them had to prove their worth to the Supremacy first, and they hadn't had the chance yet. This disdain and lack of respect had also led many of these new soldiers to join the Onyx Contact Forces instead, looking for quick ascension in rank and acknowledgment from their peers.

"Take them down. We're running out of time" Kasaro more snarled than said, moving in between the stacked crates and supply boxes he had used for cover, trying to get a better shooting angle at the Umbra that continued to jump from cover to cover, dodging his and his sniper's shots as if they were thrown pebbles. At least the actual mission was going well, their lives be damned.

Lorkan grunted as he eyeballed the distance. It was too far away for a shotgun blast, and he couldn't even make out the exact position of the Rodok team with their mimetic devices making their lines blurred and confusing, so it would have to be a close combat fight. The approach had to be careful, so the Rasyat pulled out a smoke grenade, roaring a challenge and moving on, tossing the metal ball in a high arcing trajectory, sending it careening off the path as it bounced off a metal wall at a slightly wrong angle, falling behind the nest instead of in front of it.

He didn't even have time to curse his aim, as the machinegunner swivelled his heavy weapon on its mount with the kind of practiced casualness that made Morat soldiers so unnerving to fight against, and hosed the Rasyat down. High powered bullets the size of his pinky finger stitched their way across his cover, blowing holes on the wall, forcing Lorkan to dive in, but he was not fast enough, and one bulled ripped off his rib armor, taking three of his ribs with it.

The pain was lancing, and he felt his nostrils flare and eyes water at it, even as one of his hands pressed to the wound, the other fumbling on his pack for a spray of medical foam that would keep him from bleeding out. "I'm down" He reported without any change in tone from his earlier reports. If anything, he was calmer now as he needed to conserve air in his failing lungs "Mission failed".

There was a string of colorful curses on the communications link that showed Kasaro was very much livid with anger. He ducked under an already buckled and bent crate, huffing in annoyance as that machinegun swivelled again, hitting his suit with several shots that failed to penetrate. The Warrior Officer hailed the one Morat he hoped he would not have to use for this fight "Ren'ehk, now it's on you. Take out that machinegun and bring us the files." As angry as he was, the young Suryat was surprised at how casually commanding his voice sounded.

So was Ren'ehk at hearing it. It made her smirk as she realized the whelp was indeed Officer material, once more keeping his cool under fire and his mind on the mission. So far the Oznat had been resigned to guard the left flank, and all she had to deal with was a minor shootout with another Umbra, that she didn't report because said Umbra was now food for her pets and she wouldn't bother her Officer with her Hungries and their meal routine, making her participation in the battle so far next to null.

Well, that had been the original arrangement. She was supposed to merely guard a flank, allowing the rest of the troops to focus somewhere else. But now they were all either dead, wounded or too busy with a living nightmare to finish the mission, and the huntress had to take matters on her own hands.

So her target was set: a heavily defended structure that was most certainly the one with the files they needed, with a pillbox staffed by a rodok machinegun and a missile launcher on top of it, and most likely three other rodoks rounding up a fireteam inside the building. Following the usual fireteam composition, she expected a hacker, a medic and a team leader, probably some younger warrior officer who was a bit too eager for a promotion to realize he had pitched in with the wrong side of the Combined Army.

It was time to teach those whelps a lesson, and Ren'ehk was a patient teacher too. Like Lorkan, she didn't have long range weapons, so she'd have to use smoke to make her approach. Unlike Lorkan, she knew better than to toss in a high arch when the angled buildings made it so hard to predict the bounce offs. Instead she rolled her first grenade down an alley, waiting until it detonated into a cloud of oily black smoke, before running in, clicking her tongue to summon the Hungries to her.

Oznats were natural sprinters and endurance runners both, able to cover short distances faster than the eye could see, and Ren'ehk was used to blind fighting, so she was confident her next smoke grenade would roll perfectly under the pillbox, even as she swung underhanded and completely without sight to her target. It was all about the smells, the sounds, the way the barked orders and clatter of gunfire echoed and reflected along the metal walls, it made angling a throw somewhat easy as long as she didn't expect pinpoint accuracy.

There was no need for perfect accuracy when her objective was to blanket the reinforced position with smoke, robbing the enemy of their sight even as the Rodoks already started to coordinate should a sniper shot come through the shroud enveloping them. What they didn't expect was a lean female to barge through their front door, her snarling animals in tow, screeching, cutting and biting at the much better equipped soldiers.

The dense smoke meant she couldn't shoot at them, which was very good as in a shootout the Rodoks would have a clear advantage over her, no matter how much easier it was to fire a shotgun than a machinegun in close range. So she went in for the melee combat, kicking the front door open while her Hungries swarmed in from the pillbox opening, taking the enemy position from all directions at the same time.

In a melee, the huntress had more practice, more speed, and even more raw physical strength. She wasn't slowed down by heavy, bulky jump packs and mimetic devices amounted for nothing when Ren'ehk could smell whether or not the Rodoks had washed their briefs that morning. Inside the smoke, all she could see was the glow of their weapons and visors, but she could hear the whirr of their power packs, the thump of their boots on the ground. She didn't need to see to kill them.

The first one to go down was the machinegunner. He had to go, otherwise as soon as the smoke dissipated he would be back to suppressing Kasaro across the field. Ren'ehk stabbed him through the gut, her bone blade cutting into the light weave of his suit to puncture his lungs and intestines. It was a fatal wound, but not one that would kill him right away, giving him either a few hours of painful agony or more likely a chance to be healed back once the fight was done and she had retreated.

It felt bad killing other Morats. As much as her species wasn't supposed to care, and in many ways relished the chance to fight itself, to the packmistress it always felt like a waste of time and effort. There was so little to be gained fighting other Morats, that it felt more wasteful to kill them than to just maim them and make this a lesson they could improve on…

She found herself smirking again, thinking about how much of a teacher she was that she couldn't stop thinking about lessons and improvement even when these were her enemies… And then she saw, in the middle of all the smoke and haze, a very different figure. It was tall, gaunt and elegant, its slender legs deceptively powerful in their digitigrade stance, with long feet touching the ground at the tip of spindly claws. It wore a long coat, elegant and stylish in red and metal grey, with the markings of an officer visible on the side, its lustrous, smooth black head and glowing yellow eyes visible even in the smoke cloud.

Ren'ehk growled. It wasn't a Morat leading these soldiers, it was a Nexus. A bloody, Urkherit born, vat bred Nexus! These Rodoks weren't soldiers. These couldn't learn, they couldn't improve and pick up new skills, because they weren't even real Morat! It was one thing to have their species be ruled by the Combine, as humiliating as it was, but it was another to follow a bloody Urkherit drone into battle! At this point they weren't allies, they were just slaves with fancy uniforms, and slaves deserved no respect from a warrior.

Perhaps later she would muse on the irony of her anger, but at that moment, the Oznat was frothing, mad with pure rage. So much her blade was left stabbed into the machinegunner's side as she reached up, grabbing her own helmet and pulling it off. It wasn't very smart, it was violence without reasoning, savagery at the very finest… But it felt good. The moment her teeth came out, her claws ready, the Oznat roared to command her pack as if she was little more than one of the beasts herself. Oh, she would relish every second of this!

Before the bony crest of her helmet had hit the ground, Ren'ehk was upon the Nexus agent, clawing at his long, elegant gun, another high tech model that outperformed the blocky rifles given to the Morat soldiers. But no amount of high tech gear could stop the packmistress' claws as she dug into the Nexus' wrist, twisting it violently until the bone cracked beneath her grip, drawing a satisfying screech from the creature's pulled back, leering lips. It died howling as Ren'ehk spun around it, using its body as a shield to take a close range shotgun blast from one of the Rodoks.

She could have used the Nexus' own rifle to eliminate all of them. But at this point her rage was blinding hot, her white eyes seethed with it, glinting in the choking, claustrophobic smoke cloud that kept filling the room. The dead Urkherit was thrown bodily over, knocking the Rodok medic down and allowing two of the Hungries to pounce on him, one of them biting his face off while the other ripped at the leg.

There was a growl and a hiss to her left and Ren'ehk ducked under a shower of caustic blood as a lucky blow from the enemy hacker caused the highly volatile blood of one of her pets to detonate in contact with the air. The close range, small explosion turned the former Morat into a puddle of molten metal, bone and skin, but the packmistress dodged the stray jet, turning her gaze to the last one, his long weapon dropped to the floor as he pulled an elaborate, curved blade.

"You don't deserve to use that" the Oznat spat on his face as she rushed him, the soldier realising not quickly enough that he was not trained to deal with a rabid female and her overly violent beasts, switching to his pistol mid charge and firing point blank. The bullet connected with her sternum so hard it fractured the breastplate, leaving a big, darkened gash where it punched in. But while it did hurt, the wound lacked real danger, and the smell of her own blood only drove Ren'ehk into a more violent frenzy.

She grasped the blade clumsily held by the last remaining Rodok and twisted it in, stabbing him with his own weapon, pushing against him, her arms flexing and air escaping between her hissing teeth until the blade pushed out of his back and he was left stuck to the wall. The Rodok struggled with his bulky jump pack, trying to scramble off, but there was nothing he could do to stop the packmistress from punching into his throat, her claws cutting through the soft armorweave, the skin, the muscle, all the way so she could grab his cartilaginous throat and rip it off, yanking the tube out with a fleshy, choking gurgle that would continue for a moment as the slave soldier choked on his own blood.

The Oznat snapped her tongue and the remaining three Hungries stood to attention, watching the entry points for any more enemies as she wiped both of her hands clean on her own long hair. She took a second to admire the glistening red adorning the tip of her otherwise pearly white braid, and huffed in approval before picking her helmet back up "Machinegun nest cleared" she reported when the mask fit back in "I'm downloading the files now. You should call for extraction, Officer."

Kasaro was surprised at his own smile now. The packmistress had actually made a request instead of giving him an order for a change. Thank the gods for small progresses. Still he couldn't extract his team when they were still beset by an angry, living smoke monster, and now he had a very short time to kill that last Umbra before the ship arrived and left him for dead.

The Umbra itself was getting increasingly angry, or maybe Kasaro was projecting his own frustrated rage onto it. It pulled out some sort of tri-bladed boomerang that looked ridiculously out of place on a creature that quite literally oozed vodootech out of its pores, and tossed it in a way too perfect arc. The blade spun around, whistling as it cut through the barricade Sor'kan had been using as cover, and then sheared his long sniper rifle in two.

A little lower and it would have cut off both his arms too, but the sniper reacted fast enough to just lose his gun and not his fingers. However, that did make him incensed, and like his officer, he knew the extraction was coming soon and they were strapped for options, so he figured he might as well do something insensate for a change.

The Yaogat charged the Samaritan. There was a moment of stunned silence as the creature itself realized some red faced monkey with a death wish was attacking it with a long, curved sword, and then the most difficult duel of its life began. For some reason this Morat was faster, or perhaps just angrier, and made it all the harder for their blows to connect.

Sor'kan hollered a curse as wispy nanotech smoke enveloped him and he stabbed at random, only to suddenly feel his blade meet actual flesh. There was a spurt of foetid blood and a startled cry as the Yaogat yelled "It bleeds!" he said in triumph, pushing his blade further in hopes that he would cause enough damage to stop that rampaging monster even as more of its smoky tendrils enveloped him. The smell was awful, but the glistening blood spurting out of the wound was very real.

And then Sor'kan died. It was just as fast as his crazy, pointless charge had been, as the Samaritan seemed to decide it had had enough and simply lifted him by the throat, his body losing color and strength as nanotech viruses ate it from inside out. In the space of a breath, the Morat sniper was a husk, tossed to the side like a discarded wet tissue.

However, there was a lesson to be learned: Umbras bled. And if they bled, they could be killed. Kasaro knew it as he raised his gun up, the heavy machinegun resting on his shoulder, cold and precise. He aimed true, standing tall and sure he wouldn't take enemy fire now that the Rodok team laid butchered where they stood "Now you die." he snarled under his breath before pulling the trigger.

All his life he had learned 'Short, controlled bursts' and 'holding down the trigger is for maniacs and Raizot pilots'. At this moment, he felt like a maniac, he was angry, angry that his mission was an almost failure, angry that his people were oppressed by some unseen tyrant, and right now, most of all he was angry that this mass of utter bullshit nanotech monstrosity had killed half his strike team. So he did what he was not supposed to do and squeezed that trigger until his joints hurt.

The Umbra came at him under a hail of bullets. The ammo counter on his visor running down so fast he couldn't see the numbers fly by as his high impact rounds seemed to just cut through the smoke without effect. Then the creature staggered as a shot hit its mark "Found it." he thought even as his ammo counter hit 0, and he ejected the drum magazine before the weapon could click empty, slamming another one home faster than he could draw breath.

He had found the fleshy, vulnerable bits hidden in the smoke, and now he aimed at them, uncaring for how much nanotech protection it had, nothing could take upwards of two hundred shots and survive and he knew it. His gun bucked on his hand, but between his natural strength and his powered suit, he held it on target, hitting it over and over and over again until the creature finally staggered and fell down, gurgling and losing control of its nanotech cloud, the viruses turning on its own dying body to devour itself in an attempt to repair the damage even as it died, its death throes spastic and violent. The Suryat didn't stop shooting until it stopped moving, firing on and on as the Umbra lost form and cohesion.

In perhaps ten seconds, maybe less, Kasaro had exhausted two ammo drums on his target. Now his gun felt hot, the muzzle glowing red and half molten from the constant discharge. A thin trail of smoke rose both from the tip of his weapon and the pile of pulped flesh and still writhing nanotech cloud that had been the Umbra Samaritan.

Silence hung out now that the combat was done, and Kasaro ordered his med-tech to make a quick check of every trooper that could be saved. As it did so, he walked over to Sor'kan's corpse and recovered the Yaogat's blade, now tainted black by the Umbra's ichor. The Warrior Officer swapped his own sword for that one, giving his Kurdat friend and companion a short, respectful nod before standing up and moving on, waiting for the dropship.

Far away from that frantic shootout, Ren'ehk pulled her sword off the dying Rodok gunner, twisting the blade around so it would shred his inner organs, making the damage that would have been repairable into a deadly hemorrhage. She turned to the local computer and began downloading the files they had suffered so much to recover, listening to her Hungries' clicks and snarls for any further troubles. None would come.

In a bout of curiosity, the Oznat opened one of the files and skimmed it. Once more she found herself smirking when she realized Kasaro had lied to her. These weren't just the supply bases for the Onyx Contact Forces. These there contacts for human dissidents, Krakot mercenaries, all the network of spies and infowar operatives the Combine had implanted in the human sphere!

"Smart kid" the packmistress chuckled as she closed the file. The realization of her own treason, her own part in this little conspiracy finally hit her and so did the irony of she becoming a traitor after butchering those Rodoks for betraying her species' ideals. But for some reason she felt fine with the thought of splitting, of leaving the Combine, of being free. Seeing her own species being so directly led by another had churned her guts, had made her question if it wasn't time the Morats just up and left the Combined Army already.

Now, the next step was to convince the Karanatat commander that this was a good cause, before he had them all sent to death for treason. And once more Kasaro showed his smarts: If Ren'ehk couldn't sway that old Sogarat to their side, no one could. But that didn't mean she was all too eager to face Hirok now.

"Maybe after a shower" she spoke out loud as if she was talking to her Hungries. It was a very bad habit she had never been able to kick. That, and smirking to herself when she was alone. In the end, Ren'ehk was feeling satisfied today, and that was enough.


End file.
